Trick or Treat
by natida
Summary: You often wonder, Why are you doing this? A Carlisle fic.


**A/N: I was playing around with ideas, and this sprang to mind...it might have something to do with me watching the last episode of Grey's Anatomy last night. Hmm. Anyway, I just typed this, so it probably has quite a few mistakes. Your reviews are ALWAYS welcomed and much needed!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything, especially not the wonderful Carlisle.**

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_Why am I doing this?_

You ask yourself that so often.

You ask yourself that every time your throat _burns_ with thirst. Every time you come near a human being. Every time you see blood.

_Why am I doing this?_

You've seen the children on Halloween. They dress up like monsters on the last day of October and ask for candy at each door. There's something terribly familiar about it; you realized that one day.

You had gotten up from your usual place next to the fire, curled up with Esme, listening to Edward as he played the piano softly and watching Emmett and Rosalie as they played chess; something they hardly ever did.

There had been a knock on the door, and you had smiled with amusement at your family, knowing fully what awaited you on the other side of the door. You had been expecting it for the last hour, and already had a bag with candy on the table, though you could not understand how the children could like such disgusting things.

You moved to the table, took a handful of candy and opened the door. You were met with the typical "Trick or Treat!" and you smiled at them, giving each child some of the candy you held. As they took it from you, you looked at their costumes, complimenting some and laughing at the greedy hunger in some of their eyes.

But one of the costumes called your attention most.

It was a small child, covered in a white cloth with eyes cut out of it: a ghost. Tiny, pale hands reached out from under the sheet to take candy from your cold ones. Timid blue eyes looked into you black ones as you smiled.

It was then that you realized how this scene was so very similar to your life; you are disguised as something that you are not: a beautiful human being. You live your life trick or treating: moving from place to place, begging for forgiveness for whatever sins you must have done to deserve this un-existence. You take the candy in your hands: taking the opportunity to help others, to redeem yourself in both your eyes and God's.

But the child that stood in front of you that October is gone now, and your doorstep is a different one. You leave your house, kissing Esme lightly and waving at your five children, who are sitting idle before it is time to leave for school. You drive away, and as the rhythmic pumping of hundreds of human hearts meets your ears, once more you ask yourself:

_Why am I doing this_?

It must be so simple, you think, to be a nomad. Feed when you want, move when you want…you are free from the simple laws of nature, free from every law except for one: don't let the humans find out about your existence. Apart from that, you are free.

And now, as a "vegetarian" vampire, you are tied to the strictest laws. Not only to the human ones, but to the ones you yourself invented, to _restrain_. To _prevent_. To _control_. To restrain yourself from ripping every human you meet to shreds and feeding on them then and there, like the monster that you are. To prevent losing the Carlisle in you, or what is left of him, and becoming something else. To control the near irresistible urge to become what your instinct begs you to be…to stop yourself from ripping your costume off and throwing away the candy that you were given.

Because it is all thanks to God, and you know that, even as your throat burns you, though you hardly feel the urge to drink it anymore. It isn't that you _don't _feel it. It's just that you _refuse _to let it influence you. But it still hurts, and it hurts to know that in spite of your efforts, you still are a monster.

Even Edward has not realized the extent of your guilt, and you know that. You think that it might be your fault that he hates being a vampire so much; your hate towards yourself, your own feeling of inadequateness has rubbed off him, and you feel guilty for that. You feel guilty for everything.

_Why am I doing this?_

You walk into the hospital and in spite of the blood, the continuous pulse of so many people, and the noise, you feel good. You have talent, when it comes to caring for people. And in spite of the stressfulness of it all, it gives you satisfaction to help, and it helps you to soothe the guilt a little. Only a very little, but it is enough.

You have patients who die, of course, and it pains you to see it, and even though you know better, you can never truly keep away your thoughts and the memories. The memories of Edward, Esme, Rosalie and Emmett, as you bit them to save them. Did they deserve it? Was it good or bad? Was it selfish? And what is _right_?

God, what is right?

You constantly wonder if it was _right_ to change them, and if you should do so with everyone. Of course, you know that this life is eternal damnation, but shouldn't they all have a chance? A choice? And it pains you to know that you are thinking horrible things, and imagining situations which are terrible abominations, and that you are meddling with destiny.

And so, that you walk through your life, on the streets on your own personal thirty-first of October, trick-or-treating, and you wonder if you deserve the candy that you get. You wonder if you should pull off your costume some time, and stop deceiving people.

And sometimes, you wonder what _is_ under that costume.

There is a child, a very small one, with bright blue eyes, sitting on a bed of white sheets in the hospital. He smiles at you, and in spite of his hairless scalp and the hollowness in his cheeks, he looks like a normal little boy again. Even more human than the scared little boy who had walked into the hospital six months ago, followed by his terrified parents.

Now, you smile at the child as he clutches his delighted mother's hand, and see the happy tears in the woman's face as her husband thanks you repeatedly for saving their baby.

But all that exists in your world, in that split second, is the boy's smile, and the stars in his bright blue eyes, as he knows that he has found his cure.

The child gives you candy and you take it.

You will continue trick-or-treating. Now you know why you do this.


End file.
